Sue Monk Kidd. The Mermaid Chair. Viking Peguin, 2005.
I do not think the thought is an original one. After thousands of years, we have finally discovered a religion divorced from morality. We call it spirituality, but, then again, we can call it whatever we want to. At first glance, this is what this book is about.
But I liked this book. I think it is deeper than that. At first, I thought it would have a fairy tale ending; it seemed almost cut and dried. I thought I had it figured out very early into the book. It would have been an adequate ending. But hers is a better ending; not perfect, but better.
Finding oneself is a dangerous business. As Kidd suggests, it is both salvation and damnation. It may be damnation because of the places that we have to travel through. We have our scars, but they are part of life. What gets us through is the power of love and forgiveness. When we lose those powers ... well, we just do not get through. In The Mermaid Chair it is a love affair sparking the release of the inner spirit, signified by the renewal of the artist's gift. Morality gets in the way. It always does, but sometimes we get over it without it killing us. That sometimes is the nature of grace...it is so graceful.
Family Mythologies
All of our families have mythologies, little stories that we tell that are either outright fabrications or just our perceptions of the truth. They usually are necessary until we grow and forget about them. However, they may have such an impact on us so as to scar us forever. The central character, Jessie, struggles against such a mythology: the role of her father's pipe in causing his death. Coupled with the childish application of guilt (she had given her father the pipe), it marks her early life. And the truth is far different...
It reminds me of Merle Jordan's Reclaiming Your Story. We have to struggle with leaving father and mother and learning to love others, particularly God, more than these in order to find our own definitions of ourselves. Then we begin to become authentic.
5/10/05